March hatch along. My first incubation ever

[Redheadhomestead]

Hey all, not sure how these hatch alongs work, but I wanted to document my first incubation and figured I could share with everyone along the way. If this post is in the wrong place please move it!


24 eggs went in the incubators today at 5pm

We are incubating 21 prairie bluebell hen eggs and 3 barred rock hen eggs

The rooster is a welsummer.

I collected eggs from 2/21-2/24 and here we are.

 

[Fluster Cluck Acres]

That's super exciting!

I'm putting my eggs in my incubator tomorrow night. This will be my first full incubation, too. I hatched some eggs back in December, but didn't put them in the incubator until the broody ditched them. They were on days 18-21 so I didn't have long to wait.

I'm doing 4 BCM eggs and the remaining 17 are my barnyard mix (orpington roo). I've been collecting eggs since 2/19 because my rooster found a new home on 2/12, so I don't know how fertile the hens still are. (I cracked an egg from my SS and my Rhode Island Blue and they both had the bullseye, so I'm confident some are fertile... but my orpington and my wyandotte's eggs did not have the bullseye on their yolks on eggs laid within the previous few days). I'm also hatching about 5 eggs from my favorite wyandotte hen, but her and my roo never got along, so I doubt hers will be fertile. But I'm willing to give it a shot.

Best of luck to you with your hatch!

 

[Redheadhomestead]

Yea this is going to be an experience because my rooster is roughly 10 months old with his pick of 13 girls. He has his way with most of them but barred rocks which are high up the pecking order don’t let him have it lol

 

[Iluveggers]

Following! Lots of help to be had here! Good luck!

 

[Redheadhomestead]

Anyone that’s done this knows there’s not much to update until you start candling so I’m just dropping in here to say we seem dialed in.


Also after cracking 6 eggs over the course of the last couple days we’re sitting at what looks to be a 50% fertilization rate. I hope for better than that in the incubator currently! We will have some eggs tomorrow and continuing running the stats

 

[Iluveggers]

Anyone that’s done this knows there’s not much to update until you start candling so I’m just dropping in here to say we seem dialed in.


Also after cracking 6 eggs over the course of the last couple days we’re sitting at what looks to be a 50% fertilization rate. I hope for better than that in the incubator currently! We will have some eggs tomorrow and continuing running the stats

FYI I rarely saw clear bullseyes in my eggs before setting, and I have 30 of 31 showing fertile in the incubator. Bullseye method isn’t always accurate.

 

[Redheadhomestead]

That’s great info!! Thank you for passing that along. I’m trying to keep expectations very low for this first hatch, but who are we kidding it’s gonna sting a little if we come in real low.

 

[Redheadhomestead]

Ok so 48 hours in and I couldn’t help myself. I candled one from each incubator quickly. I feel like I’m already seeing the formation of the blood island. I didn’t expect it to move around like it does. In the video I’m gonna post you can see the island roll around as I rotate the egg.

No idea what I’m looking at here but very exciting

 

[jdfog2]

I am also new at incubating. I'm new at Chickens. So new in fact that I don't even have any yet! But I have been lurking here and watching youtube vids a few months in anticipation of starting this spring.

I originally wanted to get some Barred Rock chicks (from a hatchery but I didn't realize the demand and when I did I found there weren't going to be any female chicks available until very late this Spring/early Summer. )

I was disappointed but didn't want to wait a real long time before having eggs and growing out some Roosters for meat so I ordered some Bielefelder chicks that are coming April 24th.

Of course not long after that I ran into someone locally that has Barred Rocks (and only Barred Rocks. They offered to sell me eggs for $1 a piece) (they have Roosters and in fact have some eggs in their incubator as well).
So, I put 30 Barred Rock eggs into a new incubator yesterday. So that's how I came to get into the incubator game.

Good luck!
J

 

[Redheadhomestead]

That’s awesome J. Barred rocks are great birds. That’s pretty wild to go from not owning birds to having 30 in the incubator! If you have a hatch along thread drop the link in here I’d love to follow your journey! What day are you on/suspected hatch date?